


The Stars and the Trees

by bees and more than bees (Crowleyfornia_Girls)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Original Character(s), Pine Cliff, casually moves this to ao3 for reasons, people in Pine Cliff live forever apparently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 17:30:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4928698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowleyfornia_Girls/pseuds/bees%20and%20more%20than%20bees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adriel and Jerran move to Pine Cliff. Adriel was not ready for the price that comes with living forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stars and the Trees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SomeRainMustFall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeRainMustFall/gifts).



> Adriel belongs to believeinthesmilinggod on tumblr. I just borrow him sometimes for reasons.

**i.**  There are very, very few people in Pine Cliff who look to be over their thirties. This isn’t something Adriel notices until Atci is older and out of the house and has a family of her own. He can’t help but think that maybe his hair should be greying, maybe there should be wrinkles on his forehead and darker circles under his eyes. He tries to ignore it, but it bothers him, and through some simple asking around, he finds that no-one ages past their mid thirties.

He can’t help but panic slightly at that, so many things running through his mind as he goes to the only person he knows to go to in this situation- to Jerran- and Jerran, he hasn’t changed at all.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Jerran replies, shrugging, the way he acts making it obvious that he’s avoiding the subject.

Adriel decides to drop the subject.

 

**ii.** Adriel wakes up one night in a cold sweat, reaching out for Jerran on instinct, so afraid the impossible had happened and he had lost him. Jerran wakes up much more slowly, reaching over to turn on the light, then wrapping his arms tightly around Adriel while he cries, murmuring quietly to him in an effort to calm him down.

“We’ve got forever,” Jerran reminds him quietly, trying to provide some sort of comfort. “We really do.”

 

**iii.** Years and years pass, and to Adriel it feels like an eternity. He wonders how it must feel to Jerran. Atci gets older, but she still visits when she can find time. Then she stops visiting and her own daughter takes her place. One day, Farah comes to the door with mascara running down her cheeks and her hair a mess, sobbing in Jerran’s arms as she tells them that Atci passed away, old and alone in her sleep.

Jerran takes this into stride like it’s commonplace.

“You don’t care?” Adriel asks, all disbelief and almost anger. “Your own daughter is  _dead_  and you don’t care?”

Jerran turns quickly and looks at him and for a moment, Jerran is not 26. He is fourteen billion and old and tired and he has seen this a million times. “Don’t tell me what I do and don’t care about.”

 

**iv.** Jerran sits in the window nook a lot during the winter. Sometimes he reads, sometimes he just stares out the window and smiles sadly to himself. Adriel brings him a mug of hot chocolate one night and sits down next to him.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks, nudging Jerran gently and watching the snow fall with him. It feels warm, like home, even after all this time of being here, and Adriel doesn’t think he could be more content.

“I don’t remember anymore,” Jerran replies, sanguine, but something about snow and late December makes him feel like there’s something he should remember, something right at his fingertips but just out of reach. “I feel like I’ve forgotten something important.”

 

**v.** The world fades around them and Jerran seems to hardly notice. A world outside Pine Cliff doesn’t exist, and even still, people grow tired and leave the town. The stars fade, the sun grows cold and soon Adriel can’t see it in the sky anymore, but things in what remains of the town carry on like normal.

Adriel can’t tell how long it’s been anymore. Thousands of years, maybe billions, it seems like, and he can feel himself getting so unbelievably tired. He wasn’t ready for the price that came with living forever.

He stands at the border of the town, staring out at nothing but an endless void.

This decision is selfish, he knows that much, he knows that Jerran will be left alone again, that as long as this universe exists, Jerran does too, but he pushes that to the back of his mind, glancing back one last time at the small home he and Jerran had made, then taking a deep breath and stepping outside the city limits. 


End file.
